Google has
tuned up the way you will search for books from now on with a slick new Ajax interface. Google has developed what it believes to be a better way to browse Google's digitized books on your computer screen. The new interface allows users who are reading books to use the scroll bar or arrow keys to navigate around the book. Users can also now zoom in and out and jump to a full screen view of a book. Navigating through the book is easier with a right side framed table of contents that does not refresh when pages are clicked on, thus creating faster viewing without any reloads and a two page spread view. Google did a great job with the new Book Search site. Fine tuning it like they did will surely attract a lot more users.
Tags: book search, books, BookSearch, google
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Comments
3
Subscribe to commentsrandom_guyNov 22nd 2006 12:14PM
I'm still frustrated. If, e.g. , you search for The Wealth of Nation" by Adam Smith (it's a full view book), you get a couple of copies, but the scan is shown as scanned (except for a couple of pages). This is very frustrating to read. Find it here: http://books.google.com/books?as_q=&num=30&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_libcat=0&as_brr=1&as_vt=the+wealth+of+nations&as_auth=adam+smith&as_pub=&as_drrb=c&as_miny=&as_maxy=&as_isbn=
My nr. 1 request is that they use their OCR technology to convert the text in the books to computer screen reader friendly (not to forget printer friendly). Google Books can already search in the books and highlight your searched words, and yet they don't (for this book at least) make any attempts to make the book I am searching reader friendly. Also note in the book linked above that the scan-page is bigger than the actual page being scanned, which gets annoying quickly when trying to read the book.
In my view, that makes Google Books more of a novelty than anything else for reading books.
However, this is a great update to the interface, no doubt about that. Now they just need to focus on making reading the stuff easy and pleasurable.
Another treat thing about the update (or maybe it was there before, I just didn't see it) is tha you can see who references in the books. I haven't explored this, but if it means that it has both forward and backward citations that is just wonderful for students (I was one not too many years ago).
random_guyNov 22nd 2006 12:19PM
Damn, I made a lot of typing mistakes in my previous post..hehe..*I* better focus on making what I write easier to read and more pleasurable :$
MysteriusNov 22nd 2006 5:09PM
I just wish they had a horizontal scroll that's similar to their current vertical scroll. Why limit yourself to two pages like a traditional book when you can have unlimited pages scrolling horizontally, too?